The Evil Dead - pile of overrated, over-hyped, gooey crap?

M

Mommy 2 Be(Due 1/25)

New member
The Evil Dead was recommended to me by a number of horror fans as an example of iconic 80s thrills and spills. Apparently, the 1981 movie was Sam Raimi's directoral debut and has a huge cult following to this day. I picked it up recently, and was chock full of anticipation as I sat down to watch it.

I can't tell you how sorely disappointed I was by it. The acting resembled a Year 7 school play, the characters had all the depth of a steaming piss-puddle in the Sahara, and there were continuity errors galore. Don't even get me started on the special effects - I felt like I was watching a cross between an episode of Trap Door and Tales from The Cryptkeeper.

I had been hoping to check out some other horror classics, but after The Evil Dead, I'm feeling quite dissuaded at the moment. Any suggestions of pre-1990s horror that could appeal to modern audiences and restore my faith in the history of the genre? I'd prefer movies that are more psychological in nature, considering I think I'll be bored senseless by the cheesy gore and special effects from back then.
 
You have to remember the time it was made blah blah blah...
students with no money or previous acting credentials blah blah blah...
First of it's kind blah blah blah....
 
People really need to be aware of the context, the budget and the era in which the film was made, when watching a movie like this from neary 30 years ago.

There are so many old, classic movies from era's gone by that are definiteley worth checking out, but the worst thing you can do is have someone tell you it's the best/scariest/funniest etc movie ever made. It raises your expectation level to a degree that no movie can ever live up to.

Evil Dead was very much a movie of it's time, the effects probably look very crude now, but they were considered very gory back then...so much so that the film was banned on video for a while.

But to be honest, it was never actually a 'straight' horror movie anyway...it had a sense of the ridiculous about it, and moments or pure comedy.

Also, a lot of the techniques used probably look ordinary and tame now, but were revolutionary and unsettling for the time.

And I'll tell you now - if you did not like the first one, don't even bother with the second. It reaches levels of bizarre, surrealist, manic humour that make the first movie seem tame by comparison.

I actually recently watched the third movie, Army Of Darkness on bluray and thoroughly enjoyed it. This one takes Ash back to medieval England to fight all sorts of demons, and I thought it got the balance of humour and horror just right, and by this time Bruce Campbell had perfected that mocking, knowing persona that we know so well.
 
People say we should make all sorts of allowances for this movie but it's still amateurish drivel and sadly, seems to have influenced too many of Sam Raimi's (and other people's) movies, the latest being the disappointing "Drag Me to Hell".
 
EVIL DEAD Low budget, non special effects and shot with one camera. This horror worked in the 80's. It was a briiliant, gory film of it's time. Don't try to read to much into it now. Put yourself in the audience shoes, back then when renting video was a new big thing. It was all new to us, horrors like this had never been seen.
 
I'm actually not much of a horror fan at all really, I just like the odd one.

But I get the impression the 80's was probably not your era so I understand you are coming to this movie quite late...and part of me understanRAB your reacton.

But presently there seems to be an absolute glut of horror movies, most of them revolving around vampires, zombies, untold remakes and still the J horror influence.

And it's getting very, very boring.

I would rather sit through something as low budget and patently silly as Evil Dead rather than any of the vacuous, predictable, interchangable rubbish that passes for horror movies these days...I mean please...sorority girls? Endless Halloween and Hills Have Eyes remakes, and now Nightmare on Elm Street?
 
I agree about the seemingly endless franchises and girly vampire movies but if nothing else, they are technically competent, albeit vacuous.
ED is badly made with a stupid story, joke shop FX and godawful acting. If it were Italian some on here would think it even better than its already overblown reputation would have us believe. I guess it was more fun to make than it is to watch.
I came to it late on VHS because I'm not daft enough to pay cinema prices for student films.:)
 
Evil Dead 1 is superb but then I first saw it in 1982 and I can recall the fuss about it.
The effects were effective enough for many of them to be censored by the BBFC for the films cinema release which was also released on VHS.
And unless you saw the original 80's VHS version then you wont have seen the film we all know as later VHS releases were cut to pieces literally with all the gory highlights removed which lost several minutes

The film itself was indirectly banned for many years because the BBFC said they would not pass it uncut and it was not until the last decade and dvd when it was finally let out uncut

Anybody who criticises it when comparing it to todays stuff is plainly not a very clued up filmgoer.

You can criticise many of the films of the 50's and 60's for their dated effects ,acting and production techniques but that does not mean they are bad films .

I'd rather watch something that was truly original like Evil Dead 1 than the shite like Hostel and other such "horror" that gets made today.

Evil Dead 2 is poor in comparison - it ignores the first film and is played for laughs which is why it got a 15

Watching ED1 for the first time now and expecting it to have the impact it had in 1982 is quite clearly daft.

It would be like us Hammer fans expecting the 1958 Dracula film with Christopher Lee to still get an 18 and require censor cuts.

Some films made in the 50's and 60's that got an X back then get shown on daytime tv now
 
I'm having to convince myself that this Thread is nothing more than a figment of my over-active imagination, otherwise I'd end up launching into a rabid tirade of unrelenting bile and venom, aimed squarely at the severely ill-informed OP, along with any other rather foolish individual(s) who dares to insult and belittle the unparalleled Horror GENIUS found within the first two Evil Dead movies.

*Turns Green* :mad::mad::mad:
 
As Stephen King said in 1982 - "the most ferociously original horror movie of the year".

Splatter was new in 82 and nothing like it had been seen before and what was around was usually not released uncut in the UK.

Of course its content is old hat now but whenever I watch a movie I watch in the context of when it was made - otherwise everytime James Bond needed to find a payphone or used other outdated forms of technology from the 60's & 70's it would spoil the 007 movies
 
:D :D :D Yeah, I expected those sorts of comment to appear and it seems a few people have obliged - some in an unfortunate, yet predictably condescending manner. To those who are complaining that I'm not judging the film in its context, there are many horror movies from that era that remain highly entertaining today.

Psycho came out in 1960; Alien in 1971; The Wicker Man in 1973; The Omen in 1976; The Shining in 1980. None of those movies have lost their ability to send a chill up the spine, to clench and twist the innarRAB, to raise hair on the back of the neck. That's because it doesn't matter how many imitations of those true classics have been manufactured since then - real gold does not lose its lustre.

For all the allowances I tried to make for The Evil Dead, it was an inexorably yawn-inducing snoozefest. There was no reason whatsoever to care for any of the characters, all of whom were such stupendously cretinous misfits that I found myself rooting for the demons at times, in the hope that an early victory for the hellspawn might bring a swift conclusion to such wicked cinematic torture.

To my dismay, I was to be denied because The Evil Dead's pacing is some of the most horrendous I've seen in a movie of any genre. No attempt is made to establish any variation in mood or tone. Sam Raimi's debut is wholly monotonous. No new notes form its ponderous composition - the audience is instead inflicted to a drone, a succession of cheap scares from the start to its tediously drawn out finish.

Though its fans claim otherwise, The Evil Dead is no different to the mass-produced, soulless gorefests churned out by the studios today, though apparently soaked in "creative" tomato ketchup, "low-budget" milk and "innovative" mashed potatoes to give it that unbeatable artsy charm. Really, if this movie has any genuinely abiding legacy, it should be as an example of just how swayed the public are by media hype and the "indie" badge.

A real horror classic it ain't.
 
I think Evil dead II is fantastic!

'I'll swallow your soul, i'll swallow your soul!'

'Swallow this!' *GUN FIRES*

So corny, but in a good way.:D

(Or is it just me.:o)
 
yeah, as these lot have advised OP, watch Evil Dead II, which is basically a remake with a better budget, better script and an absolute gem of a performance from Bruce Campbell who is hilarious as Ash
 
Evil Dead is better than the sequels I reckon.
Yes, it's cheap and amateurly acted but I preferred the series when it was being scary and there are lots of effective moments including 'we're going to get you' and Ash creeping through the cellar.
It's rightly regarded one of the best low budget horror flicks ever.
When Raimi turned the series into the Three Stooges with gore I chuckled along but it was never the same. Evil Dead 2 really disappointed at first but it's gotten better with age.
I hope the remake (if it happens) goes back to the scares.

Oh, and The Shining had its moments but it's a pale imitation of the book.
 
Well no Alien came out in 1979, and the sequels have destroyed any power the original had, because of how much over exposure the alien has had. This is the same for the Evil Dead. All the impersonators and immitators have knocked the stuffing out of this movie somewhat.

Wicker Man by the way, is a terrible, terrible movie.




But you are supposed to end up rooting for the Evil at points, except when its taking on Ash.

To my dismay, I was to be denied because The Evil Dead's pacing is some of the most horrendous I've seen in a movie of any genre. No attempt is made to establish any variation in mood or tone. Sam Raimi's debut is wholly monotonous. No new notes form its ponderous composition - the audience is instead inflicted to a drone, a succession of cheap scares from the start to its tediously drawn out finish.



Yes it is, because it was a genre definer, and the mass-produced soulless gorefests churned out by the studio today are because of this films existence. Without TED, you'd not have Elm Street. You'd not have had the sensation of the video nasty craze. You'd not have half of the films we have in the genre.

It stanRAB next to Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween as defining the genre, and their period.

Its not supposed to be a horror magnum opus, its a dark comedy-horror film thats violent, silly and non sensicle.
Click to expand...
 
Back
Top